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Zachary LermanApril 21, 2017

Hey I love your podcast. I watch a lot of leagues from all around the world and feel like more soccer fans need to know about more Youtube soccer channels out there. Often soccer fans in America only want to live stream European soccer matches & if there teams aren’t on TV, they forget about them. I find this pretty sad. If fans truly care about the game & their European teams, they should be motivated to find their highlights, stats, etc.
Could you please talk more about Youtube channels in general on your show and their potential benefits of bringing soccer content you otherwise wouldn’t find on beinsports, Fox, ESPN, etc.

Hey I love your show, great content. Could you please talk more about the role of Youtube in watching soccer highlights. It is a very underrated way of watching soccer and can give soccer fans a new platform for watching soccer from all around the world they otherwise wouldn’t see on beinsports, ESPN, and Fox Sports. Thanks.

I wish I have more time to watch everything I recorded this past week. My last day off without a work assignment was April 11 and my next day off without any work will be May 4.

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I watched bits and pieces of the 3 NBC Premier League broadcasts from the UK last weekend and have the following observations:

1. In terms on substance, NBC’s Premier League broadcasts from the UK were miles ahead of what FOX produced from Los Angeles. Being able to come up with the money to put a dozen people on site makes a huge difference, even if it is for one weekend.

2. NBC has chosen to take a “corporate” route to presenting studio programming Premier League. Everyone is all business, from the lead studio host to the pundits. The discussions and debates are cordial, not combative.

3. There is one thing NBC completely forgot about in the past 4 years with their studio coverage of the Premier League: sports television is supposed to be FUN. NBC made the decision to outsource all the “fun” elements to Men in Blazers, which broadcasts essentially from a dungeon in New York City.

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We know that Turner Sports, like FOX Sports, like to keep the fun stuff in the studio. NBA on TNT studio shows feature at least 2 fun elements at last once a week: 1) Shaqtin’ A Fool mocks and lampoons boneheaded and clumsy plays by players (most notably Golden State Warriors backup center Javale McGee over the years), as well as blown calls by referees including blatant traveling violaitons; and 2) a long-running joke on Charles Barkley and his inability to lose weight.

The challenge for Turner Sports as it gets ready to produce UEFA Champions League on truTV starting August 14, 2018 (with the UEFA Super Cup from Tallinn, Estonia): incorporate the high-level studio punditry and interviews that the likes of NBC is able to produce, as well as the fun elements Turner is known for. Not to mention hiring a first-rate London-based in-stadium broadcast team if Turner were willing to spend the money to put people on site each week (Derek Rae is definitely interested.) If Turner were willing to spend money wisely and hire great people to do the jobs (including several internal candidate at Turner for various roles, such as Coordinating Producer Deaton Bell and World Sport personalities including Kate Riley and Rhiannon Jones, Turner can produce a better product than NBC or FOX.

The bar has been raised in recent years. Let’s see if Turner can raise it even higher.

Speaking on MLS…I see the following problems with the way that US fans can view the league’s coverage and what needs to change:
#1) Making fans pay to watch par-level soccer (MLS Live/MLS Direct Kick) isn’t going to win over a lot of people. Personally, I would watch my regional team (Crew SC) every week if I didn’t have to pay for it…which brings me to my next point;
#2) Unless I pay, I can’t watch a single Crew SC match because I don’t live around Columbus even though it’s the closest MLS team to me regionally (90 minutes away). The only MLS matches I can watch are the national games you see on ESPN, FS1, FOX, etc and with Crew SC being a small market team they are only shown on the national stage once or twice a season (unless they make the playoffs…look at problem #3 below). The club has settled with one major broadcast partner (Spectrum) to provide the games at a local level and that’s it. How can you build viewership with just a local broadcast? No wonder no one goes to their home matches. Six or seven years ago, games used to be shown on the Fox Regional channel and it was great. I could watch the match nearly every week and attendance was much better. I can watch Cleveland Cavaliers games 3 nights out of the week because they are on the Fox Regional channel and I live almost 4 hours away from Cleveland. I can watch Columbus Blue Jackets games on the regional channel but not Crew SC games…what gives?
#3) I know that the American viewing audience loves their playoff system and I think it works for most sports (football, basketball, hockey, baseball, etc). However, soccer is not one of those sports. I think it’s time to reorganize the different levels of US soccer (MLS, NASL, USL) and begin the promotion/relegation league system. A majority of MLS players are in favor of a new system and yet Don Garber and other “big-wigs” of MLS say it just won’t work. The percentage of soccer TV viewers watching MLS versus other leagues on US TV…a whopping 7%! This should be a huge wake-up call to MLS. Something needs to change! Having a playoff system only stretches out the season an additional month with low viewership anyway. Instead of expanding, why not go promotion/relegation now and give some of these tier 2 (USL) teams a chance of promotion and bring new teams and new fans into the national spotlight, thus, building the sport from within. A great example of this is FC Cincinnati, who averages over 15K fans per home match and just broke the USL record for a home opener (23K) and had 15K attend in the middle of the week on a Wednesday! Crew SC only averages 10K per match and have the lowest average attendance in the league. I think it’s time for something to change for MLS soccer or it will always be viewed as 2nd-tier entertainment.